Say Goodbye to Hundreds of NDB Approaches

Starting today, 216 NDB approaches will be decommissioned. Although the FAA has yet to actually switch them off the air, the decommissioned NDB stations will no longer be flight-checked, maintained, approved for use or shown on updated charts, according to AOPA. “The FAA decommissioned them after careful coordination with AOPA and the aviation community,” said Randy Kenagy, AOPA director of advanced technology. This means that the FAA “can stop spending money on something few use and will have more funds for GPS-WAAS approaches to general aviation airports,” he added. The FAA has proposed decommissioning a total of 479 NDB procedures, with the final set of procedures scheduled to be eliminated in September. AOPA told the agency that 60 NDB approaches should be saved because they provided the lowest minimums. However, the FAA retained just 35 of the 60, according to AOPA.